Chapter 1 Chapter 1 "Help."
Forbidden City.
It is still cold in March.
Last night, a spring rain suddenly fell. It was heavy and foggy, but it stopped after only two hours. It was like dark clouds dispersing, and the haze in the city was completely gone. The entire Forbidden City immediately became brand new and as smooth as a mirror.
In a dimly lit room in a cluster of side rooms not far from the Forbidden City, a slender figure was lying weakly on the edge of the bed with a languid expression. Her clear eyes revealed a hint of despair as they slowly scanned the wooden furniture in the room inch by inch.
"Ah..." She sighed softly again. Then she slowly raised her upper body. Her long, smooth, black hair flowed from her shoulders to the quilt, appearing a bit tangled, but she had no time to care about it at the moment.
After sitting up, Li Shuyao raised her hand to rub the corners of her eyes, which were dry and sore from crying all night, but unexpectedly, it affected the wound on her cheek - because she had just been slapped ten times and had not yet applied cold compress or medicine, the stinging pain from her tender cheeks was no less than the pain in the corners of her eyes.
Li Shuyao had no choice but to put her hand down again, got down sideways, and followed the original owner's memory to find a basin of completely cold water behind a screen in the corner of the room.
He picked up a clean cotton cloth from the shelf, wet it slightly, folded it in half again, and finally applied it horizontally to his slightly swollen eyelids. It felt like a basin of cold water was poured over his head, and his chaotic consciousness instantly became much clearer.
Li Shuyao traveled through time eight hours ago.
Before she traveled through time, she was just a sophomore female student who had just started school. One night, when she got out of bed, she was not paying attention and her right foot stepped on empty air. Her head hit the iron ladder next to her roommate's bed opposite her hard. Before she could even feel the pain, she fell into darkness.
When she regained consciousness, she felt exhausted both physically and mentally, her cheeks burning and stinging, and her eyes felt as if heavy weights were hanging on them, sore and dry... It was as if she had been crying like this for hundreds of days and nights.
In front of her was a soft wooden bed covered with bedding. Due to extreme fatigue, Li Shuyao didn't think much and climbed up without thinking. Then she covered herself with the quilt and closed her eyes. She did it all in one go and didn't wake up until half an hour ago.
After waking up, the memories of another person immediately flooded in. Coupled with the antique home accessories in the house, Li Shuyao had to realize an extremely cruel fact -
She wore it.
I traveled into a Qing Dynasty palace fighting novel that I read during the summer vacation, and became a cannon fodder who appeared in the novel for only two and a half chapters but died in an extremely miserable way.
And this cannon fodder has the same name and surname as her.
For a moment, Li Shuyao couldn't tell who was more unlucky.
She could only be thankful that when she first saw the cannon fodder with the same name as her, she had read and memorized the original text.
This is of course impossible. After all, the original book has more than two million words, and it describes in detail how the maid Uya fought her way from a bondservant to the empress dowager of the Xin Dynasty. During this period, she experienced countless palace battles, betrayal after betrayal, loss of favor and then regaining favor. In the end, she finally saw through the vanity of life, cut off her emotions and supported her own son, the fourteenth prince Aixinjueluo Yinzhen, to ascend the throne, thus starting a decades-long career of ruling from behind the curtain. [1]
It is seriously inconsistent with real history!
How could Li Shuyao truly recite the original text? She simply read it a few times and memorized some key plot points. Of course, she read the part where Li Shuyao appears especially carefully, wanting to burn every word into her memory.
Li Shuyao, originally from the Five Banners under the Han army, entered the palace last year after a minor selection. Among the other maids who passed the minor selection at the same time as her were two other important figures: the aforementioned Uya clan, the historical mother of Emperor Yongzheng, Empress Xiaogongren; and the other, Consort Ding Wanliuha clan, a renowned and long-lived concubine during the reign of Emperor Kangxi.
The three of them were quite lucky. As soon as they entered the palace, they were assigned to work around the Qianqing Palace.
Three months ago, the annual selection process began. However, this year's selection wasn't going smoothly, with only two-thirds of the number of maids selected compared to last year. Because of the grand imperial harem ceremony scheduled for the end of August, most of the selected maids were sent to the six eastern and western palaces, leaving the staffing structure of the Qianqing Palace largely unchanged.
Except for one person.
This person is the main villain throughout the novel, that is, Concubine Yi, Guo Luoluo, who was particularly famous in history for being the most beautiful concubine in the harem.
I don't know what the Ministry of Internal Affairs was thinking, but as soon as Guo Luoluo entered the palace, she was sent to the Qianqing Palace. Several maids in charge were not only kind and gentle to her on the surface, but also took good care of her during their daily duties, which led to the other palace maids being very hostile towards Guo Luoluo.
But "Li Shuyao" was a careless person. When she saw a pretty person, she would approach her and call her "sister". After calling each other so many times, the two of them became good friends. She brought Uya and Wan Liuha together and intentionally or unintentionally "isolated" the other palace maids in the Qianqing Palace.
However, the good times did not last long. Ten days ago, due to a shift swap, Guo Luoluo was replaced by "Li Shuyao" to guard the warehouse and was spotted by Emperor Kangxi who came to select rewards. She was named an official girl on the spot, and after serving him in bed, she continued to be favored.
According to the original novel, Guo Luoluo spent three months in the rear quarters of the Qianqing Palace. In June of the 16th year of the Kangxi reign, she was granted the rank of Yi Guiren (Noble Lady of the Imperial Household) and, as an exception, was allowed to move into the main hall of the Yikun Palace. At the end of August, during the grand ceremony of conferring titles on the imperial harem, she was promoted to Yipin (Princess of the Imperial Household), becoming the head of the Yikun Palace. In the 20th year of the Kangxi reign, she was promoted again, directly to the rank of Consort, achieving unparalleled prominence.
These correspond to real history one by one.
But things were completely different afterwards. She repeatedly opposed the female protagonist, Uya, but Uya, because she still loved Kangxi, endured her feelings time and time again. It was not until the 37th year of Kangxi's reign that the 12-year-old Seventh Princess, born to Uya, died in a harem strife. Kangxi remained indifferent, not only not visiting her, but even staying in the Yikun Palace for many days... Only then did Uya recognize the true face of the man beside her.
The consequence of "abandoning love" is that the counterattack becomes more and more brutal.
——The eldest was imprisoned; the crown prince was deposed; the third was severely reprimanded; the fourth was disfigured; the fifth was banished from the capital; the eighth committed suicide by burning himself; the ninth was assassinated; although the tenth escaped by luck, he had to spend the rest of his life in bed; the eleventh was poisoned and died shortly after being born; the thirteenth fell into the water when he was young, and since then he has been timid and unusable.
Among all the adult princes, only the seventh and twelfth princes had a rare good ending.
Starting from the 47th year of Kangxi's reign, concubines in the palace continued to die mysteriously; in the 51st year of Kangxi's reign, the emperor, whose body was gradually corroded by chronic poison, died in the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The edict he left before his death was tampered with by Uya, and then the 14th emperor ascended the throne, and Uya ruled the country from behind the scenes.
The retaliation against the villain Guo Luoluo was even earlier. Around the 40th year of the Kangxi Emperor's reign, she was secretly guided by someone planted by the Uya family to take drugs... [2]
The outcome is predictable.
-
The wet cotton cloth placed on the slightly swollen eyelids was soon stained with Li Shuyao's body temperature, and the coolness gradually faded away from the forehead.
Li Shuyao raised her hand to take off the cotton cloth, dipped it in the basin, picked it up and wrung it out. This time she did not apply it on her eyelids, but opened the folded wet cotton cloth and buried her whole face in it.
Her cheeks were originally red and stinging, and the pain intensified with the chill, making her feel as if her soul was also aching.
Li Shuyao frowned and tried her best to be patient. After a while, she took the cotton cloth away and threw it back into the basin.
She turned around and walked to the dressing table on the other side and sat down. She picked up the blurry bronze mirror and looked at it again and again. Finally, she was relieved that her face was not disfigured, but it just looked a little serious.
Putting down the bronze mirror, the plot of the book went through her mind. After confirming the current time point, Li Shuyao picked up the box of white powder on the table again. In the dim light in the room, she looked at herself in the bronze mirror and carefully covered the red marks on her face one by one.
After doing all this, she quickly returned to the bed and sat down, lowering the two curtains on both sides of the bed, hiding herself in the darkness.
Not long after, someone knocked cautiously twice on the door from outside, and a pleasant female voice came in: "Sister Shu Yao, are you in the house?"
Li Shuyao did not respond.
The person outside knocked on the door twice more.
Li Shuyao pretended to have just woken up, coughed twice, and replied weakly, "Yes, come in."
She kept comforting herself in her heart that the heroine at this time was not as cruel as she was in the later period, and like her, she was just an ordinary palace maid, so there was really nothing to be afraid of.
Yes, don't be afraid.
Even though he thought so, he quietly hid in the quilt, hiding half of his face below his nose in the plain thin quilt with embroidered cloud patterns.
Almost as soon as she finished speaking, the door of the house was pushed open with a "creak". After it was opened, the person did not rush in, but stood outside the house for a while and then slowly walked in.
She walked very slowly, her soft cloth shoes making almost no sound on the ground.
——This is natural. After all, you are working in the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Even if it is just the outermost circle of the Palace of Heavenly Purity, you need to walk lightly and move silently.
Otherwise, what if I disturb the master?
Wu Ya soon arrived at Li Shuyao's bedside. She had probably just finished her shift, and she was still wearing her light green palace maid's outfit. Her hair was neatly combed into a small bun, adorned only with two simple silver hairpins.
But her figure is delicate and graceful. When she walks, her slender waist sways slightly, and the silk handkerchief made by her wrist creates ripples in the air. Every move she makes is full of careful design.
It doesn't seem like a visit, but more like... showing off.
Only the original owner "Li Shuyao" could not see it. Not only did she treat her as the best girlfriend after Guo Luoluo's "betrayal", she also said a lot of bad things about Guo Luoluo to her, and did not hide her inner desire at all. In the end, she was brainless and became a chess piece used by Uya to explore the way. After climbing into bed without success one time, she was ordered to be beaten to death by the gloomy emperor.
He appeared in two and a half chapters in total, which is only seven or eight days.
Thinking of this, Li Shuyao regretted letting her in. She should have just pretended to be asleep and not heard anything...
"Sister Shuyao, how is the injury on your face?"
But it was Uya who spoke, with a questioning tone in her voice.
Li Shuyao hid in the quilt and trembled imperceptibly, but soon calmed down. She sat up slowly, leaned weakly against the head of the bed, pulled the curtain up slightly, revealing half of her face, looked at Wu Ya with moist eyes, and said in a low voice, "No, it's okay." One could vaguely hear a hint of grievance in her voice.
Uya's face softened instantly.
She stood by the bed and raised her hand to hang up the half of the curtain on Li Shuyao's side, exposing her entire body. She then sat on the edge of the bed, a look of concern and worry just right on her pretty, fair face. She said, "I'm glad you're okay."
"When I got home from work yesterday, I heard Yueshu say that you were punished by Aunt Jia. I was very anxious and wanted to come and see you right away. But Yueshu reminded me that it was almost time to turn off the lights. I thought that if I came to your place, I might not be able to get back to my own place. If Aunt Jiaya saw me, I would definitely be punished too."
Wu Ya sighed again, "Yue Shu also said that you must feel very aggrieved after being punished so suddenly. If you knew that Aunt Jia Ya punished me for coming to see you, you would probably feel even more guilty, so that's why you didn't come."
"Sister Shuyao won't blame me, right?"
Li Shuyao immediately shook her head, "No, why would I blame my sister?"
"I'm very happy that my sister can come."
...That's strange.
Wu Ya smiled, raised her hand and touched Li Shuyao's cheek, and said with a distressed tone: "Let me see the wound on your face... Is it much better now?"
Her fingertips were soft and delicate, and her body temperature was still there, but Li Shuyao felt as if she was being stared at by a cold and poisonous snake, and a shiver ran up her back.
Li Shuyao pinched her palms hard, but her delicate face showed no sign of trouble. She replied obediently, "Much better. It's probably because Aunt Jia didn't use too much force."
"Is that so?" Upon hearing this, Wu Yashi didn't know what she was thinking about, and her dark eyes suddenly became extremely deep.
Li Shuyao looked at her like this: "..."
Help.
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